Great Movies You Might Not Have Seen, Part 2

I recently posted five great movies that you probably weren’t thinking about when you flipped through the listings wondering what to watch. These are all taken from my days of running the Google Cinema Club (detailed here). Here are five more. I can’t promise everything I ever present will be family-friendly, but these mostly are.

On Monday, life returns to normal. For now, if you’re sick of football, watch one of these. Or all of them.

Shall We Dance?

1996, Japan. There are other movies with this same title. including a classic Fred Astaire flick. Those are worth seeing, too, but this is the Japanese one.

This is a very sweet and funny movie about a shy Japanese accountant who musters up the courage to take ballroom dance lessons. His wife doesn’t know how to account for his strange behavior, so she suspects he’s having an affair.

I actually watched this with my parents. It’s not on Kanopy or even Prime, but YouTube has the whole movie, so here it is:

Afghan Star

Free on Kanopy. I saw this first at Sundance, actually.

For a brief shining moment after 2004, women in Afghanistan were free, or somewhat more free, anyway. Afghan TV had a singing competition like American Idol that was hugely popular, and people could vote for their favorites on their mobile phones. The movie reminds us that, for many, this was their first experience with democracy.

(Shock and horror) Women were allowed to compete. One even incorporated dance into her performance. She received death threats for that.

All that is gone now with the Taliban in control, presumably.

The Station Agent

Free to rent on Amazon

If your only knowledge of Peter Dinklage is from Game of Thrones: he’s a great actor who had a thriving movie career before that. He’s pretty much the center of this movie, with very strong supporting performances by Patricia Clarkson and Bobby Canavale.

There is something about a really good actor that makes you want to watch them no matter what they’re doing. I will watch anything with Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Christopher Walken, for example. All three of these actors are like that.

I rewatched this entire movie before writing this. Finbar (the Dinklage character) is a train fanatic who works in a model train shop, until his only friend dies and leaves him an old depot in a small town in New Jersey. He moves out there to live.

Joe (Canavale) operates his father’s coffee truck while his father is sick, and parks it near the depot. He befriends Fin despite a complete lack of encouragement. Fin answers all questions with monosyllables, and just wants to be left alone. Or so he says, but Joe won’t take “no” for an answer.

Olivia (Clarkson) is separated from her husband and mourns the loss of her child. The three of them become unlikely friends, and they all “walk the right-of-way” with Fin, one of the many charming moments in this film. Stuff does happen, but I won’t spoil the plot. Watch this movie.

The World's Fastest Indian

You might call this the world’s worst title, since most people would think “Indian” was someone from India, or a Native American. No, it’s a brand of motorcycle.

Burt Munro is a national hero in New Zealand, and this movie is, as they say, based on a true story. Anthony Hopkins plays him with an endearing lack of showiness; Burt is introverted and a little eccentric, and the neighbors wish he’d stop revving his engine at the break of dawn, give up this motorcycle business, and mow his lawn.

The movie opens with Burt making his own piston, pouring molten metal into a mold, and then dunking it in a barrel of water to temper it. The neighbor kid, who visits him every morning, observes that this is the same water he just used to make tea with. Burt observes that it gives the tea a nice tang of titanium.

He decides to travel to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to take part in Speed Week, and despite his not having registered or possessing any corporate sponsors, no one has the heart to say No to him. He rides the Indian real fast, flat on his stomach. You can guess what happens.

This is a heartwarming movie. You can watch it with the entire family.

October Sky

Rent on Amazon or YouTube.

This is based on the memoir Rocket Boys by Homer Hickham, who really did go on to a career at NASA. Homer grew up in West Virginia, the son of a coal miner, and he was enchanted by the Russian Sputnik launch in 1957.

Homer’s dad (Chris Cooper) is a mine superintendent, and fully expects Homer to go down into the mines with him. The high school sees its main job as training boys to be miners. Nonetheless, Homer and his friends persist in trying to build rockets, getting into all sorts of trouble for it.

Unlike most movies set in high school where the students act like the spoiled Beverly Hills kids they are, these students act like kids. They actually use trigonometry to prove that they couldn’t have been responsible for a fire.

October Sky is the last of today’s list of wonderful movies to see with your kids.